I'm back in Australia now and recovering well. I had the dressing changed today and I got a good look of the damage that was done on the Stage 4 crash

I've also got my hands on the X-Rays taken and just how far the rock got embedded. They had to get an Orthopaedic Surgeon to remove it as they classed it having bone involvement and you'll see what they mean by that

The pictures are
- when the first help arrived
- in the medic tent at the race centre
- the rock they removed from my arm
- 1st X-ray of the rock embedded
- 2nd X-ray of the rock embedded

Local team SXC Racing's Wayne was riding solo after Brian's mishap earlier in the week. There's a load of guys in the same boat and he placed third in the Masters Individuals on this stage. And actually, same in overall GC in that category.

Top effort Wayne! Stay upright next year boys and you should be top 20 easy!

How did people go at the Punishment? I came in at 5:45 for the 100km which I'm pretty pleased with as I thought I was going to be around the 8 hour mark. The training tips from the forum clearly paid off!

This weekend is the Capital Punishment (see events calendar), the race is the first round of the Maverick Marathon Series - which for many people adds a welcome 'unifying' set of series points to their season / year of racing.
There has been a bit of drama with rival series this year etc - so I wrote a brief article for The Roost magazine about the upcoming series and its strengths.
Hope you enjoy it:

The inaugural Port to Port mountain bike stage race held here in our very own Hunter Valley will be held between Thursday the 29th May and Sunday 1st June 2014. HMBA members can receive a discount when registering for the full 4 days by entering the code 'HMBA14'. There are also 1,2, and 3 day options available so no excuses for work getting in the way!

It's on again!
Remember when life was simple? Remember when you rode your bike to have a good time?
When you rode because it felt good and the company you rode with and the tracks you rode were more important than having 1000 categories to choose from and a big list of swag to choose from.

Well CTMBC are taking it back.

We're stripping away all the hype and complications and just having a fun series of 3hr races celebrating the seasons.

I have signed up for Cap Pun for the first time and are wondering if whether or not soneone has enough tine on their hands to provide me a detailed description of the trail throught the 100km or link me to a good blog

Thanks to those who offered advice and encouragement about signing up for my first 100km event - I've now committed to the CP100!

Can anyone offer any advice on nutrition? I've never really gone far beyond stuffing an energy bar into my jersey pocket before heading out for a reasonable ride. What would you recommend for a 100km race - bars/gels and how frequent?

See below the first stanza of the SXC Racing blog. We are hoping to give some insight into our training and preparation leading up to the 2014 Absa Cape Epic, followed by day by day updates from the race itself.

I'm looking for a 2014 challenge and was thinking about entering another race - possibly Capital Punishment. I haven't done a lot of racing before - in fact, only 2 attempts at the Wollombi Wild Ride. To give you an idea of my level, I did the 60km race last year and completed in 3:30, although work commitments meant I didn't get much bike time in the run up to it (excuses, excuses)

Mountain Bike Australia announced today that the 2014 National Mountain Bike Series will be brought back under MTBA control and delivery. The recent re-structure of Cycling Australia’s (CA) Commercial and Events team means that the arrangement under which CA delivered the previous National Series is no longer a financially viable option.

For those that aren't aware, just letting everyone know that Capital Punishment entries (March 15th) opened several days ago and Convict 100 (May 3rd) entries open tomorrow... so take the big step and make up your mind whether to do these great rides. The calendar is a bit hard to find on the site, but mark your attendance to represent the NoBMoB crowd here: